Watermill - Mack and Mabel

18th May to 9th July 2005.

From The Guardian.

Despite a brief West End outing a few years back, Jerry Herman and Michael
Stewart's 1974 Broadway flop is best known in the UK for the use of some of
its score by Torvill and Dean during their Olympic ice-dancing bid in 1984.
In fact, the score is better than that suggests although, despite revisions
by Francine Pascal, this story of love and movie-making focusing on silent
slapstick director Mack Sennett and his muse, Mabel Normand, is still
gossamer thin.

John Doyle's production injects plenty of energy - perhaps too much at
times, as the show feels a little too insistent for the tiny stage - as well
as capturing echoes of the wistful melancholy of a score and story that work
as fading memory, something caught in amber. Although hampered by David Soul
as Sennett - an actor who hails from the Rex Harrison school of singing and
who is at times inaudible - Doyle's production is probably as good as this
musical gets on stage. I suspect that it is one of those shows that works
best as a soundtrack, with melodic tunes such as I Won't Send Roses
and Look What Happened to Mabel working better as stand alone songs
rather than in the framework of a flimsy story.

Despite the flaws there is fun to be had along the way, with Anna-Jane
Casey proving why she is one of the best musical actresses around: a great
pair of lungs and an ability to bring dramatic depth to a role. Caught
forever in the follow-spot and the eye of the camera, Normand's decline into
drug-taking and scandal is presented beautifully - she appears to
disintegrate before your eyes, like a ghost who is haunting herself. It may
not be a classic Watermill summer musical, but it is still a much more
enjoyable experience than most trips to the West End.

LYN GARDNER

From The Times.

Taking on Jerry Hermans notorious musical flop is a brave move. Mack and
Mabel bombed on Broadway in 1974, and fared little better when it
finally arrived in London 21 years later. Hermans dazzling musical numbers
are encumbered by Michael Stewarts sentimental, meandering book. But if
anyone can put the guts back into this soft-centred tale of early
20th-century Hollywood, its John Doyle.

Doyle, along with Sarah Travis, the arranger and musical supervisor, and an
11-strong cast of actor-musicians serve up a daring blend of showstopping
pizzazz and raw emotion that exposes the seamy side of silent movies, and in
which the happy ending is just the rheumy-eyed fantasy of a washed-up old
has-been.

That gone-to-seed character is Mack Sennett, the legendary director and
sometime lover of Hermans heroine, the actress Mabel Normand. The action
takes place in flashback, as Mack, wandering uselessly around the set of a
new talkie, reminisces about his glory days of Keystone Kops, custard pies
and bathing beauties.

Doyles Watermill production favours rough-edged excitement over gloss, with
Mark Baileys murky chainlink set springing thrillingly to life as Mack
recalls his first meeting with Mabel, the kooky kid he made a star.

David Souls whisky-slugging Mack is no smoothie showman  he sloughs off
self-pity and bitterness to show the barking control freak he once was, his
tenderness carefully concealed. Soul is vocally underpowered, but he conveys
acutely Macks inner conflict: in the beautiful I Wont Send Roses,
he is both falling in love with Anna-Jane Caseys infatuated Mabel, and
trying to sing himself out of it.

Casey is sensational. With her soaraway voice, long legs, pretty face and
dark curls, she steals your heart dancing up a storm or delighting in
pratfalls. But she is better still when Mabels star begins to wane. Enraged
by Macks insensitivity, she spits the furious Wherever He Aint from
a mouth contorted by pain.

Her escalating drug use turns Time Heals Everything into a prolonged
sob punctuated by snorts of cocaine. Its uncompromising, unlovely and
utterly compelling.

Doyle cant disguise Stewarts scant book, and some of the slapstick falls
flat. Otherwise, this is a production to set you tingling. Tough, and at its
best, terrific.

SAM MARLOWE

From the Newbury Weekly News.

Sensational Mack and Mabel

Mack and Mabel, at The Watermill, until July 9

In the days when movies were movies and sound came from a piano, there
was a larger-than-life director called Mack Sennett who wanted to make the
world laugh. He created stars like Mabel Normand, the waitress from Flatbush
who fell in love with him. Mack and Mabel is their story.

"Keep the heart!" composer and lyricist Jerry Herman told director John
Doyle and musical arranger Sarah Travis during a discussion about The
Watermill's latest production.

They have done so by putting in place two masters of their trade - the
fantastic, dynamic Anna-Jane Casey as Mabel and the laidback husky-voiced
David Soul as Mack who, like another MGM producer of the time, could not
understand "why people wanted to hear actors talk". It is a combination
which strikes fire, making this one of the best Doyle/Travis productions so
far.

Both have the vital gift of including the audience in the production,
addressing us as friends whose opinion matter. So we experience the
exuberant excitement of Mabel, agonise when Mack tells her he "won't send
roses" and desperately pray that Mack will contact Mabel to stop her leaving
him because of his dictatorial approach to her acting.

In a cleverly monochrome setting studded with movie cameras and steel
balconies reminiscent of West Side Story, the action is exciting,
exactingly vital and the music, varying from brash to heartrending but
always excellent, is performed by the largest company of actor/musicians at
The Watermill so far including the effervescent Sarah Whittuck as Lotty.

An immense sense of enjoyment comes in waves from the cast with numbers
like This Time It's the Big Time, Tap Your Troubles Away and
When Mabel Comes Into the Room, contrasting with the beautiful
Time Heals Everything - Anna-Jane pouring poignancy into hoping she can
forget Mack Next Year, Some Year.

No need to worry Jerry, this production has a big heart. The fact that it
has Soul, too, will do it no harm. When asked, in the after show talkback,
to describe what it was like working at The Watermill, David's reply was
"sensational". Yup, that's the word for this Mack and Mabel. Along with
unmissable.

CAROLINE FRANKLIN

From the Daily Telegraph.

"An ace collection of songs with a really duff script" was how the
Telegraph's Charles Spencer greeted Mack and Mabel when, after a 21-year
wait, the 1974 Broadway flop finally made it into the West End.

Ten years later, one is inclined to agree with him 110 per cent, on seeing
the Watermill Theatre's pocket-sized revival, directed by John Doyle.

Doyle takes things at such a lick, using his regular device of an ensemble
of actor-musicians, that you almost don't have time to notice that Jerry
Herman's musical about the workaholic silent movie director Mack Sennett (a
wonderfully forlorn David Soul) and his upstart leading lady Mabel Normand
(a captivating Anna-Jane Casey) is an empty affair.

Pause for a nanosecond, though, and you'll wonder why so much effort has
gone into something so insubstantial.

DOMINIC CAVENDISH

From Kick FM.

John Doyle and Sarah Travis have stamped their own style on Watermill
productions. The combination of actor-musicians on the small stage is always
a compelling combination, and theyve done it again with Mack and Mabel,
the story of the girl from the deli who becomes a silent movie star. Mack
Sennet and Mabel Normand have a tempestuous love-hate relationship, but the
mismatch of their ambitions drives them apart. In the end, Mabels decline
into drug addiction gets turned into a Hollywood big finish, if not a happy
ending.

The play is heavily dependent on the two main characters. Anna-Jane Casey
was magnificent as Mabel; a gutsy performance showing the charisma that
attracted her to Sennet in the first place. David Soul, as Mack, was
convincing with his self-centredness, gradually being won over by Mabels
charms, but the night I went he was having a little trouble remembering the
words which slowed the pace down.

Perhaps not as memorable a production as some of the other Doyle-Travis
greats, but an enjoyable evening.

PAUL SHAVE

From the Sunday Times.

This little firecracker of a musical  tough, funny and cheerfully soppy 
is about the tempestuous relationship between Mack Sennett, of Keystone Cops
fame, and Mabel Normand, the brilliant comedienne of silent movies. Music
and lyrics are by Jerry Herman, of Hello Dolly! fame. John Doyle directs it
with a frisky sense of humour and a cast of 11, nine of whom also sing,
tap-dance, play music and act; and Mark Bailey has created a brilliantly
versatile set. David Soul gives a warm, understated performance as Sennett,
the autocrat with a softish centre. Anna- Jane Casey is Mabel, a sparky,
impish and irresistibly sexy tomboy that only the American theatre can
produce  or so I thought, until I discovered that she hails from
Lancashire.

A treat for a summer evening  no, any evening.

JOHN PETER

The Stage review: ("What a show! ... skilful direction and a superbly versatile cast").
The Rogues & Vagabonds review is
here ("ten out of ten for the production").
The Reviews Gate review is
here ("not quite vintage [but] it is still an
evocative and memorable show, a real cut above most musicals on show right now").